“Stories of Formidable Women”: The Handless Maiden
By Jo-won Shim
Published: May 8,
2022
Translated by:
Seung-a Han
In our folktales,
there are numerous examples of the patriarchal violence that women could
possibly experience. “The Handless Maiden” is a record of survival of a woman
who experienced horrible abuse from her parents. The reader cringes at the
scene where the father chops off his daughter’s hands with a straw cutter. The
reason that this bloody story has continued to live on until today is because
the violence within our family system has not disappeared.
There are three mothers in this cruel story.
“Long time ago, a man was widowed after his daughter
was born.
When he remarried, his new wife harassed the daughter.”
(Story told by Kim Eum Jeon of Daegu in 1983, Complete Works of Korean Oral
Literature)
The first mother
that appears in the story is the heroine’s stepmother. In many folktales’
depictions of a stepmother, the focus is not on the fact that she is not the
biological mother. Rather, she often reveals a different face of motherhood. A
mother provides her own bodily fluid, her milk, and serves as the first “other”
with whom we share our most intimate bodily secrets, including feces and urine.
So every human being’s first love is directed towards their mother. A child, who
cannot survive alone, entrusts its very life to its mother through its love. However, a mother is not solely available for the
child. She has many different faces. She’s the weak person under a patriarchal
family system who is held entirely responsible for nurturing and caregiving in
the duty of motherhood. At the same time, she is also a monster that uses
terrifying violence in the name of motherhood. This complex and confusing
character appears in our folktales [mostly] as stepmothers.
“When the
[step]mother observed, ‘For some reason, she’s really good with her hands. That
really won’t do,’ she told the maiden’s father, “If you want our family to live
well (...) we need to chop off her hands and put her out of here.”’ (Story told
by Kim Eum Jeon).
“After catching [the
rat] and peeling off its skin, she put it under the daughter’s skirt (…) and
said, “Since she’s old enough to get married, it seems like she committed
adultery and got pregnant [and miscarried].” (...) So one day, the father (…) sharpened
the blade of the straw cutter (...) and said, “There is no such thing in a yangban’s family. You
little bitch,
put your hand here.” (Story told by Oh Soo Young
of Gyeonggi-do in 1982, Complete Works of Korean Oral Literature).
The
responsibility and authority that a yangban [aristocrat] family’s madame
inherited from the patriarch is the surveillance of her [step]daughter. In a
more class-based society, lower-class women are sexually exploited and
upper-class women are sexually restricted. A yangban’s daughter cannot
stand out from the crowd nor have sex appeal. If there is an ‘unfortunate’
incident with the surrounding men, including family members, the young woman’s
body is always the subject of punishment. ‘Strictly teaching’ the daughters of
the house is necessary for a family with a name, so the mother brings in the
patriarch’s blade to make sure the daughter does not use her hands freely.
“The maiden was hungry (...) When she looked up
above the wall (...) there were big pears hanging down (...) So she climbed up
the wall and (...) took a bite of one, let it fall, took a bite of another one,
let it fall, and so on.” (Story told by Oh Soo Young)
The abandoned
daughter who was hurt irreversibly by her own parents cannot find a way to
communicate with the world around her and instead climbs a wall like a hungry
animal. She uses her teeth instead of her once-dexterous hands and bites everything
she finds, but her hunger does not go away. It only produces damaged fruit just
like herself. She then falls helplessly into somebody’s hands.
“As the scholar in that
house was reading out loud (...) he saw that she didn’t have hands. Neither of her
two hands. So he grabbed her arms, and (...) he took her inside. He hid her in
his closet and closed the doors. (...) At night he slept with her and during
the day he fed her and then hid her. A month passed like that (...)
So his mother
spoke (...) she combed and braided [the maiden’s] hair, washed her face,
changed her clothes and even put makeup on her. Then she let her and her son
get married.” (Story told by Kim Eum Jeon; all quotations below are also from
this story).
The protagonist
chooses extreme passivity as a mode of survival. In return for her sexuality,
she eats what she’s fed and stays when she’s held. She does not initiate
anything in the relationship. From the outside, it seems like her strategy has worked:
a runaway girl finding her place in a patriarchal family system as a
daughter-in-law in a wealthy family. However, in such an extremely lopsided
relationship, the warmth provided by the powerful is not something to really
rely on.
“The young man went to take the gwageo (...) Almost after a year (...) she gave birth to a son who was beautiful like a mooncake. [The young man’s] mother was so happy (....) and wrote a letter to her son in Seoul.
‘Hey, hey, since you left
(...) she gave birth to a baby like a mooncake. Hurry up and pass the gwageo,
and come home soon.’
(...) The mailman
fell asleep at the tavern and the tavern owner [took out the letter and changed
it to this] (...)
“Oh my goodness, hey, hey
(...) she gave birth to a round strange thing with no eyes or nose. What should we do?”
(When the young man
received the letter, he thought), ‘Oh, has my mother changed? Even if the
baby’s a round strange thing she wouldn’t talk about it like this.’ So he wrote,
“Mother, mother, even if it is a round
strange thing, leave it alone until I get there. Even if it has a harelip and
no eyes or nose, leave it alone until I get there.”
(...) [the mailman] came
down [from Seoul] and again fell asleep at the tavern. (...) The tavern owner
went through his things again [and rewrote the letter] (...)
“Oh mother, what do we do with a strange round thing? With no eyes or nose? Just get them out of there,” he wrote, and handed over the letter.
Letters are
exchanged only between the husband and his parents, and the daughter-in-law has
no say. In their own forum, she is spoken about and judged according to their
own standards. A forum from which the
person directly involved is excluded often gets distorted.In the end, the
person who pushes the woman away to the edge, using the swapped letters as an
excuse, is the mother-in-law who was once kind to her. If the first mother chops
off her hands with the patriarch’s blade, the second mother pushes her and the
newborn away using her son’s words. The network of language that they
monopolize is an authority more powerful than a blade, so there is simply no
need to see blood. Lethargy and silence could not protect the maiden.
“Walking and
walking (...) she went to a spring (...)
She said, “I’m sorry, you’ve all come to get some water but would it be okay if you get me some first?”
“Oh no, you have such a
beautiful baby and you’re a beauty yourself. But how come you don’t have any
hands?” said one of the women at the spring. She then brought [the maiden] some
water, fed the baby, and clothed it as well. Now she and other women left (...)
so the maiden started walking again but thought that she wanted to go back to
the spring
and drink more water there
(...) (While waiting for someone to come back), she fell into the water (...)Full-grown
mushrooms were hanging down, so (...) she tried to grasp and pull and do
whatever she could, but it was no use. ‘Oh no!’ she thought and the baby on her
back was crying (...)”
Where the maiden
revives is the loud and busy spring. The working women’s gazes are warm like a
mother’s and their help is pragmatic. The maiden who has fallen into the cold
water gets her senses back and reaches out fervently for the baby who fell in
with her. She regains her motherhood and revives. She is the third mother of
the story.
Meanwhile, her husband follows after his wife a bit too late. There’s also a version of the story in which he leaves behind his prestigious government post and becomes a taffy seller and finally recognizes his changed wife after many years of wandering around. In it, the maiden accepts her husband—who gave up everything to find her—as her child’s father and lives happily ever after. She holds hands with the women at the spring, she stretches out her hands toward them, and she will continue the history of motherhood in a different way.
 |
| The protagonist of the story lost her hands because of her parent’s horrifying abuse but was revived after joining hands with the women who were working at the well. She writes a new story for herself. Image: pixabay |
[About the Writer] Jo-won Shim has been working as a children’s books author and editor for over two decades. These days she’s so fascinated with classics and ancient stories that she doesn’t even realize she’s getting old. She’s a member of the ancient story study club “Red Bean Porridge Grandma.”
*Original
article: https://www.ildaro.com/9340
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